Behind the scenes at the Cambridge News - chief reporter Chris Elliott's working day

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Chris Elliott is chief reporter of Cambridge News. His day is all about stories.

05:30

The pattering of rain on the bedroom dormer windows are an effective enough alarm clock, but yes, it’s still dark, and I need a little mental fortitude to slide out from under the duvet. I’m on the early shift today, starting at 7am, so it’s a case of showering quickly, dressing, grabbing the mobile, and getting behind the wheel to do battle with the A10. Breakfast, as always, can wait.

06:15

It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, the A10 towards Milton from my home near Ely is streaming with cars and lorries in both directions, a bright-eyed snake which shivers to a halt frequently as vehicles bunch up at the two main roundabouts. This particular morning, my mind is more focused on that than usual, as my first task when reaching the office will be to set up and write the daily Cambridge News live blog, focusing on traffic, travel and news.

06:45

The office is in darkness, and I’m the first one in, so it’s lights on, computer on, kettle on, and jumper on – it’s often chilly first thing, before everyone else arrives. The live blog is aimed at helping readers keep track of problems on the roads, problems on the trains, and keeping them abreast of the latest local stories. It looks like I’m going to be busy. The traffic website reveals there’s an overturned lorry at Spittals interchange – ’twere ever thus – and Abellio Greater Anglia is reporting a level crossing barrier fault disrupting trains between Cambridge, Ely and Norwich.

09:30

Most people are now safely at work, so the need for travel updates is waning, and it’s time to wrap up the live blog and move on to pastures new. Our senior people get together about 10am for a news conference, looking at what stories are breaking for the day ahead, and which will need to go up on the News website, and also looking ahead to which stories will appear in the following day’s newspaper. Each reporter contributes a list of stories they are working on.

11:00

First nibble of food of the morning, a bacon sandwich, and a quick look at the giant TV on the office wall. Flickering across the screen is a list of a dozen or so headlines from our website, and next to each one, a number, revealing how many people, second by second, are reading each story. Gone are the days when we’d need to wait 24 hours for readers to pen a letter and post it before we found out which of our offerings they liked, and which they didn’t. Now feedback is instantaneous.

13:00

Lunchtime? Er, no. For most journalists, it’s an alien concept. Soup is heated in the microwave, sandwiches plucked from the fridge, and are soon being eaten at the desk. Must get round to vacuuming the crumbs out of my keyboard…

15:00

The ever-open maw of the internet continues to demand feeding too and, in tandem with keeping it satisfied, myself and my colleagues are writing stories for the printed version. I watch the paper slowly filling up on a computer monitor, headline by headline, picture by picture, word by word.

This evening, some time after we’ve all gone home, a button will be pressed in our printworks, the enormous press will whip up to full speed, and the newspaper will be printed, at a rate of about 1,000 pages a minute.

18:30

Finally finished the last story of the day, a piece looking back at Cambridge in the 1970s.

I have the honour of being the paper’s ‘nostalgia correspondent’ and it’s fascinating to delve into our archive to see what was in the news 30, 40, 50 years ago.

18:45

Back on the A10, and as it was when I set off this morning, it’s dark, and there’s lots of traffic. How long will it take me to get home?

Before I set off, I check out the News website on my phone – for the second live blog of the day, being written by a colleague.